All that is Solid … is a radical blog that seeks to promote a future beyond capital's social universe. "All that is solid melts into air" (Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, 'The Communist Manifesto', 1848).

The Social Science Centre (SSC), Lincoln is hosting an event to look back at its activities since it was founded in 2011 and to make plans for its future.

10:00–12:00: SSC on Reflection, 2011–2016 (SSC members only)

A chance for all past and present members of the Social Science Centre to reflect on their experiences in the Centre, our activities, roads we have not taken, changes we should make and hopes for the future. Highlights to be shared with others later in the day.

Ideas and making plans for the term/year. It has already been suggested we run courses on Brexit and the co-operative movement in Lincoln and the UK

What is the SSC?

The SSC organises higher education that explores the everyday experiences of its members – who are both students and teachers – through concepts and ideas developed in the social sciences. This includes making critical sense of social problems (like ‘austerity’, racism and nationalism or the privatisation of schools) and important local and global events like ‘Brexit’, learning how they affect us and how we might have an effect on them. Our past courses – The Social Science Imagination, Co-operation and Education, and Know How: Do-It-Ourselves Higher Education – all offered different approaches to this learning.

We are a co-operative organisation that is owned and run by our members. This means that we not only have an experience of higher education, but can decide together what this education should be, how it works and why it matters. All our members can help run the Centre by taking part in democratic decision-making processes and collective ownership and responsibility. No one pays for learning or gets paid for teaching at the SSC because we do not believe knowledge should be for sale. Members with financial means make small monthly contributions to the co-operative to pay for room hire and other running costs.